Even if that is a bathroom, I guess there's no other choice but to pick that. Also, Fleur already pulled onto my hand and led me towards it.
While the Noxians and the Dark World denizens were still unaware that there were two Transcendents creeping up behind them, we arrived in front of the small room Fleur pointed without any trouble.
Hikari and the others were supposed to steal that artifact but if it's always like this where a whole lot of the enemies were standing guard or sitting around, whatever it was that they were doing, it's impossible for Hikari's group to swipe it from them.
Did Arland consider those lower than Transcendents when he was cooking up his plan? Or is it one of the things he ended up neglecting?
If they really managed to swipe it, or at least they managed to reach this roof, they would inevitably be put into a dangerous situation where someone or all of them have the possibility to die.
"Which of the two rooms should we pick?"
Fleur asked as she couldn't decide what to pick from black or white doors.
It's a bathroom. It was surely divided between 'Men' and 'Women'.
My eyes observed those who were sitting in the middle of the roof and those crowding at every node. The ratio between men and women inclined towards men. With that information, it's better to choose the Women's room to avoid encountering them. Plus, they should have stalls inside, right?
The only problem right now is which is which…
Black or white?
I tried sensing the interior of the rooms using my sensitivity towards energy. Currently, there's no one in both rooms. By concentrating for a bit, the layout of the rooms somehow formed inside my mind.
The Black door is for men and the White door is for women since there were more stalls inside it.
"This one. But Fleur, are you aware of what kind of room this is?"
I answered her before asking the important question. Will she be embarrassed? I don't know.
"I am aware. We also have something like this in the forest. Daisuke, I lived longer than you. I don't have to be embarrassed about bathrooms."
Ah. Right. She's almost five times my age. Her experience of living is five times more than me. Though she spent the first quarter of it focusing only on reaching Transcendence, she saw and experienced more things than me.
"Right. It seems like I unnecessarily worried about something trivial."
When she heard it, a smile flashed on her lips.
"We don't really have a choice, do we?"
"Yes. Then, shall we?"
As if escorting someone to an exquisite room, I opened the door for her. Of course, I made sure to do it silently, in a way that they wouldn't notice the bathroom door opening by itself.
Still bearing that smile, Fleur entered the room while I followed behind her.
In there, we will have to wait for another 10 minutes. Only when the cooldown is over will we storm outside to grab the artifact. The next use of orb will be for our getaway.
The Transcendents' whereabouts are currently unknown, so we also have to be wary of them. Just in case they appeared, we have to be prepared for any kind of scenario. The clutch will always be the right moment when to use the Aura of Concealment.
Once we're inside, like most bathrooms on Earth, there was a mirror that could be used to see our state. However, because we were concealed by the aura, our reflection couldn't be seen in it.
We passed by that and picked randomly from the twenty stalls. Though it looked small when seen from the outside, this room was bigger than how it looked. Each stall wasn't cramped at all.
It's understandable as they built it for the Aristocrats. The place is also clean thanks to the Formations they put in place for sanitation.
"Uhm… Now that we're here, I realized that this situation is awkward."
Fleur looked up at me from where she was. I gave her the seat while I rested my back on the wall.
No matter how one looked. A man and a woman in a bathroom stall like this… There were many scenes like this inside the files in my hard drive which Yuko and Yumiko checked during our vacation.
Back then, each time they would watch something, my mother would walk in. Because she couldn't get mad at the two, she would scold me instead…
Err… Why am I remembering that at this moment?
In any case, it's really awkward if we stayed in silence while waiting for the time.
"Just imagine we're back inside that manor."
"… Then you shouldn't stand that far away from me, Daisuke. We have to resort to whispering when the concealment wears off again."
"Is it fine?"
"It's not like I'm doing anything here."
Fleur shrugged her shoulders.
If we're restricting our energy like this, we're no different from normal people, but yeah, situations like this remind me of how I am still a small figure in the scale of worlds.
There's no reason to be overly confident when I still couldn't do something freely.
Following what she said, I moved next to her. Despite that, we still spent the following minutes in a somewhat awkward silence. Only when the concealment wore off did we start to take the situation seriously.
10 minutes. The remaining time we needed to wait before storming out of here. During that time, Fleur once again went over the things she knew about the two Noxian Transcendents.
In case we have to face them, even in a brief encounter, I need to be aware of what they can and what they cannot do.
The first of the Transcendents goes by the name Benedict of the Rattori Family. With the trait of a Noxian having a Darkness main Elemental Core, he focused on making spells that would improve his close combat skills as well as his stealth. It's safe to say that he leaned more on becoming an assassin than a frontal fighter.
Right. He's a bit similar to me as he relied more on burst attacks that aimed to kill in one strike or a quick succession of spells. During the earlier confrontation with the Elementals, he killed one of the Elemental Supreme. That one Elemental Supreme in Fleur's story. The one she considered as her master.
The second Transcendent goes by the name Marina of the Tebary Family. Fleur once confronted her when she was defending the latter half of their forest wherein it ended in a stalemate. Also, Fleur had to retreat when she felt the looming threat coming from Benedict.
According to her, Marina is more or less someone like her who focused on mastering 9-nodes Elemental Spells to barrage her opponent. With the clash of her Water Element and the Darkness Element which Marina possessed, Fleur couldn't find the chance to cast a higher spell to give her an advantage.
"If they appeared, you can leave Marina for me to hold her off. Please be extremely careful against Benedict. The two of them have experienced killing a Transcendent, unlike me."
Fleur reminded me, there's a trace of worry in her voice. Maybe she's remembering the death of the other Transcendents under the hands of the two.
"You don't have to worry, I also have such experience. Even though I'm not the main fighter, my skills widened the gap between the two. And it led to the death of her opponent."
Lucas' threat was still higher for me. If I left that world while he's alive, I'll keep worrying about the safety of my wife.
"Your wife became invincible in that world because of you."
"Not really. She's already invincible even before she met me. And so are you. The defending side was always at a disadvantage. If you managed to use that Transcendent Spell on them, if they don't die from it, they'll most likely be seriously injured."
Even under the protection of the Nullification Zone and the White Knight, I ended up like that.
"You don't need to flatter me… If I am as amazing as your wife, we will not lose our territory."
"There you go again. Then I'll make you someone invincible. As long as you have me by your side, they will hardly put you in a disadvantage."
"… If you put it like that, I think I'm becoming more tempted to become one of your companions."
Unlike my companions, this is the first time wherein I became interested in someone first. And clearly, she never thought of me like that until I brought it up earlier. For her, I am only a timely ally which became the deterrence for the enemy.
"Don't mind it. Take your time to carefully contemplate it. Either way, my skills are enough to put you in an advantageous position against that Marina if they ever appeared."
-
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Soon enough, the last minutes of the cooldown passed. It's now the time for us to finish this heist.
We already finalized everything during that waiting time and so, without exchanging more words, we instantly geared up to storm out of this bathroom stall.
Err… that sounds weird.
Either way, with Fleur at the front, we moved from that bathroom stall towards the door we entered from.
Along with both the Domain of Valor and Bulwark of Invulnerability, the room we were in exploded as the surrounding energy gathered by the Elemental Gathering Platform fell under my control.
Before they could even react, an Energy Storm created by the gathered Elemental Energy blew those in the middle away as I instantly reappeared in front of the Artifact.
"Thanks for safekeeping this cube. I will be taking this back."
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